


Tunnel rat

by LindaMaceMichalik



Series: Always Louis [2]
Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: M/M, haemoerotic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 03:53:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17501045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindaMaceMichalik/pseuds/LindaMaceMichalik
Summary: Ah, but then there was Louis.  Always Louis!What more could Lestat say - that he was a fool for love?Aren't we all?





	Tunnel rat

**Author's Note:**

> Set not long after the history told in Blood Communion, so spoilers if you have not read the latest Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles novel.
> 
> I do not own the rights to nor profit from the use of characters from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles.

" No - stay here! If you have to guard anything then cover that mangled gate we came in by - and I do mean you as well Thorne, not just Cyril!"

The two oversized vampires looked none to pleased with their Chief's orders, but Cyril turned to Thorne with a shrug and said what he was often heard to say "He's the bloody Prince, so let the bugger do ...., if he wants to" inserting whatever latest odd behaviour the Brat Prince was currently flaunting.

Thorne, having long ago replaced the love for his lost Maharet with a fierce devotion to protect and do whatever Lestat asked, scowled at his conflict in duties and settled into the rough carved wall at a good distance in from the moonlit entrance to the tunnel.

Cyril, seeing as it was midnight and dawn was at least six hours off, stood in the tunnel entrance next to the twisted hinges, glaring down into the Grund where chocolate box houses crowded each other in the narrow gorge between the inner and outer cities of La Ville de la Cite de Luxembourg. This had all been an unending forest and a blank on the map when he'd stood in the shadows of the Great Pyramids the last time he'd ever seen the sun.

"He can't have got far! " Lestat shouted over his shoulder as he strode off down the sloping stone corridor. "They blew up half the tunnels in the eighteen hundreds to stop all those armies taking day trips to Luxembourg to occupy the place at the crossroads of Europe for the hell of it!"

Not that he'd paid much attention to the interminable wars of the humans in Europe at the time. Living with Claudia and Louis in New Orleans had been quite enough for him back then. No, he'd simply read it off the Noticeboard on the outer wall while Cyril had been twisting the Iron door off it's hinges.

He sighed, Louis must have come in with the last party of tourists and never left - even with the stronger blood of the ancients in his veins he'd been taking a risk being out at twilight! The suicidal idiot!

He knew Louis was here, the Talamasca ghosts had said so, but he couldn't feel him in his mind. Ironstone! These military Casemate tunnels under the city of Luxembourg were carved into ironstone! Not as efficient at cutting off mind signals as say, wrapping a neck-snapped vampire with iron plates, but signals disappeared damned quick passing through a hundred metres of iron laden-ed rock! He was beginning to have a nasty headache trying to 'see' through it.

Iron plates! He shuddered at the sharp memory of Louis and Gabrielle and Marius trussed and clad in iron plates by Rosh, like food parcels wrapped in silk waiting for the wasp larvae to hatch. And Louis so humanly weak. Proud of being frail.

Well he'd finally seen the light and got rid of Rosh. He'd been forced to accept that his vampires were blood thirsty predators and not angels with muddy faces. They needed blood to live and harsh discipline when called for and he had to be the one to dispense it for them all.

After all the nastiness they'd dressed so beautifully and danced so prettily together at a delightfully decadent ball! Even Louis had been happy and had danced with him! Happy ever after guaranteed for the Brat Prince and his Blood Communion!

Ah, but then there was Louis. Always Louis! What more could Lestat say - that he was a fool for love? Aren't we all?

 

Succumbing to the ignominy of it all, Lestat shouted into the gloom that his preternatural eyes had no problem piercing.  
"Louis de Pointe du Lac! Stop sulking and get your tail back here!"

Unsurprisingly, no one answered, though a few obliging rats skittered across his feet out of one of the side tunnels. Rats! Again Lestat remembered going out, following the trail of rat corpses that night Louis had finally abandoned rats to feed on humans. And how else would they have made such a charming family if Louis hadn't succumbed to his better nature and fed off of the dying Claudia? Damn that woman child!

"And another thing you never came to see me in New Orleans in the 1970s like you wrote in that libellous book of yours! I only woke up in the 1980s when I set up my rock band 'The Vampire Lestat'! You lied to Daniel and made me out to be pathetic. Skulking in a hovel, feeding on animals, that was never me, it was you that fed on rats, never me!"

He stopped. Was there a tall shadow against the far end of this side tunnel? He listened. No, there wouldn't be a sound. In any case he swore Louis could fly now, not that he would let anyone else know if he could. A bleeding heart to the very end of his grubby lace cuffs, he always had to feel guilty about any little thing that made him seem less human!

"You know if you were still human you'd have been a dark stain in the earth for more than two centuries now! I made you what you are Louis! Haven't we got past all this by now?"

Yes the shadow had changed shape!

"You know, I don't even know what you think I've done to you? How can you sulk properly if I can't suffer fully for my offence?"

Lestat could smell cologne. The expensive scent he'd bought Louis when he'd agreed to come back and live with him in the castle.

"Louis, Louis, Louis! For pities sake, come talk to me instead of wrecking yet another velvet jacket! Poor Thorne and Cyril need to hunt and that Russian librarian is pining for you! Something about Chekov or a chess game. Louis!"

 

"I did come and see you! I was affectionate and comforting and you begged me to stay. But I couldn't! I had to go."

The shadow was moving slowly along the wall now. With line of sight Lestat could feel a familiar buzz at the base of his neck starting to tickle. The tingle that told him Louis was still alive, somewhere in the world and that he, Lestat, did not have to despair just yet about having to live without his life long constant.

"Oh come on Louis, me beg? I think not!"

The sad, beautiful almond eyes stared out of the gloom into Lestat's. Yes, another torn velvet jacket. Did the boy think he was made of money? No wait a minute - he was, and so was the boy!

"Armand and I came to New Orleans and he left me to search for you while he went hunting. I trailed a vampire that brought you a baby but you wouldn't feed. I returned it to the house with it's dead mother."

"Santa Louis! Of course I wouldn't feed on a baby! The only vampire I knew to feed on a child was you!"

Lestat held out his hand to Louis as he sucked in an injured breath.

"But it didn't happen at all!" Lestat insisted and then  
" Armand?"

"Ah!" they said as one, as they often were in their thoughts.

"He conjured it?" asked Louis.  
"And in his illusion you felt compelled to reject me - do you see what he was doing? Were the two of you falling out at the time by any chance?"

Louis nodded. "It all seemed pointless by then, being with him most of all. We parted for decades that same evening."

Louis took the hand offered and Lestat pulled him into a long, silent embrace. Head on each other's shoulders, fangs pressed into each other's necks they exchanged a little blood and a great deal of comfort.

"What was it Louis?" Lestat finally asked, licking his tongue across the bite marks on Louis' neck, Louis doing the same for him.

"Always a who with you Lestat - do you need a list? Just a few whos... You should have left me in New York. Broken promises hurt like stink." He had a beautiful pout, had been practising it since 1791!

"Louis! If only I had the time and energy to be unfaithful!"  
"No, keep looking at me! Shouldn't I be the one asking you? This Sandy seems to have become a fast friend of yours!"

He held Louis out at arms length and looked over his beloveds face; a large smudge of orange dust coated one cheek. Lestat pulled out a well pressed lace handkerchief and wiped away the dust. As well as dust, blood tears stained the handkerchief.

"So my dear, name the foremost 'who', please! Let's get this nonsense over with! I should dearly love to scoop you up and fly back to our ridiculously oversized four-poster at the top of our private tower and snuggle with you till dawn sends us both to sleep."

"Gabrielle, David, Gregory, Santh, maybe Armand ... but chiefly Marius..."

"Marius? Louis, Louis! Despite his harem of attentive wives, Bianca and Pandora, even you must have seen him swooning over the delectable Armand? Now they've reconciled no one else means a thing to the pair of them - don't look at me with those weeping doe eyes of yours! Once I stopped being persona non grata for not disposing of Rosh earlier and his blessed Marius was returned to him, Armand hasn't let the poor man out of his sight. The feeling is mutual so no harm done!"

Louis did not look placated. All the while they spoke Lestat had been coaxing his pale friend back towards the Casemate entrance. He could feel the thoughts of the two guards now which was a good thing. Very tired, he truly just wanted to get back to the Auvergne with this special companion and curl up.

All four of them took to the air, Louis could fly too, he knew it! Cyril had re-pressed the door and hinges back into shape before they left so no one could tell there had been one more assault on Luxembourg's military might. Couldn't have the Crown Prince of the new Vampire Nation breaking one of his own major rules - draw no attention to vampires!

Washed and redressed in a fetching night shirt, Louis lay his head against Lestat's shoulder on the longed for bed, in the privacy of their shared apartments. Cyril and Thorne had left for Paris to hunt after depositing the Prince and his wayward consort on the roof of the tower.

Comfortable and comforted, Lestat softly asked  
"What made you think Marius and I were together this way?" gesturing at the bed, stroking Louis' soft hair.

"You kept coming out of his room at strange times denying you were seeing him at all! Lestat I know how you are!"

"Ah" said Lestat palming a small silver coffer onto the coverlet between them, "Not at all like this! He was helping me by writing up a missing ritual I wanted PDQ for our the Vampire Cannon of rituals."

"Which ritual, why so secretive?"  
Louis was sleepy, starting to think he'd flown off the handle over nothing and inclined just to forget all about it. Making up was such a good thing to do.

"A ritual for hand-fasting ." said Lestat, flicking open the clasp on the small box, revealing two platinum rings set with large single stones - one with a sapphire, the other with an emerald.

"Louis, I've been meaning to ask you....."  
====


End file.
